- - text and links as of last publication / le texte et les liens en l'état lors de la dernière publication - -

The Total Solar Eclipse of March 20th, 2015

CAUTION! OBSERVING A SUN ECLIPSE IS DANGEROUS AND MAY CAUSE IRREVERSIBLE EYE DAMAGE, UP TO BLINDNESS, ANNULAR AND PARTIAL ECLIPSES INCLUDED! Observing a Sun eclipse necessitates DEDICATED SAFE TECHNIQUES!

That first -and first major astronomical event of 2015- solar eclipse in 2015 is a total solar eclipse occurring on March 20th, 2015. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Sun, along a certain path, may be seen entirely occulted by the Moon's disk, leading to the much famed show of the solar corona streaming away from the occulted disk of the Sun at greatest. Anywhere in the area of a partial solar eclipse, observers are treated with a Sun indented by the dark disk of the Moon. for more about solar eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial "Sun Eclipses". The total solar eclipse of March 20th, 2015 is occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean as the eclipse line of centrality is beginning south of Greenland. The eclipse then will journey a long curved way until the North Pole, passing South and southwest of Iceland. Due to the configuration of the eclipse the path of it is remarkably large, at 288 miles (462.6km). Due to a a large gamma value indeed, the umbra sweeps across Earth's surface at a steep angle, producing a wide path of totality, between 252 to 302 miles (406 to 487 kilometers). As the greatest eclipse occurs at 09:45:39 UT, southwest of Iceland and North of the Faroe Islands, the Sun will be lying then at a 18.5 degree of altitude and the eclipse lasting 02 minute and 46.9 second. The Faroe Islands and the Svalbard only are where the eclipse makes a landfall. Of note how the eclipse boundaries are aligned with the Earth's terminator. The eclipse ends just at the North pole as the lunar shadow lifts off Earth and returns to space. Like usual, a partial solar eclipse is seen either side of the line of centrality, from about the mid-Atlancic Ocean to central Siberia, in Russia and down to Sahel and Central Asia. The closer the central line, the more indented the Sun like, for example, in Scotland or Norway. Western Europe, generally, is concerned with a 70-percent partial eclipse. The background of the total eclipse is southeast of the Circlet, in Pisces, the Fishes as the most remarkable will be that the totality will unveil Venus, Mars, and Mercury

Eclipse's main data are the following (data as of November 2014, NASA Eclipse Web Site). The Moon's apparent diameter will be of 33' 23.2", compared to the Sun's 32' 7.4". Greatest eclipse occurs North of the Feroe Islands at 09:45:39.2 UT, the duration 02m 46.9s and the Sun 18.5 degree above the horizon. for more about how to observe a solar eclipse, see our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse':
- greatest eclipse: 09:45:39.2 UT
- eclipse magnitude (fraction of the Sun's diameter obscured by the Moon at greatest eclipse): 1.0446
- U1 to U4 (moments of first-last external-internal tangency of the umbra with Earth's limb; practically these are the moments of the total eclipse for the place of the Greatest Eclipse like indicated on the chart. As far as local circumstances are concerned, you will have to check miscellaneous sources, like Web sources, etc. Check also at our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse' ; in UT: U1 at 09:09:32.7, U2 at 09:16:12.2, U3 at 10:14:43.6, U4 at 10:21:22.3
- P1 to P4 (moments of first-last external-internal tangency of the penumbra with Earth's limb; practically these are the moments of the partial eclipse for the place of the Greatest Eclipse like indicated on the chart. As far as local circumstances are concerned for a given location concerned by the eclipse, you will have to check miscellaneous sources, like Web sources, etc. Check also at our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse'; no P2 nor P3 due to the specific configuration of the eclipse), in UT: P1 at 07:40:51.9, P4 at 11:50:12.8

see a .gif map for the total solar eclipse of March 20th, 2015. map courtesy NASA Eclipse Web Site

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, you may see at NASA Eclipse Web Site